cdrom does not recognize the Puppy CD

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newuser

cdrom does not recognize the Puppy CD

#1 Post by newuser »

i have tried 2 CD-RW disks and the CDROM cannot read and boot. It is a 4x CDROM.

any suggestions? i dont want to waste a CDR so i'd thought it'd be better to use a CDRW

i tried on a newer machine, and it worked fine.

My old machine is running windows 95, fat16. is fat16 the reason why the Puppy CD cannot be run?

Guest

#2 Post by Guest »

i just tried a CDR disc but that did not work either

nduanetesh
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#3 Post by nduanetesh »

Hi,

The file system of your hard drive (fat16) shouldn't have an effect on booting from a CD, as the hard drive is not generally involved in a Cd boot. Since you said you tried your CDRW on a newer machine and it worked just fine, it sounds like your booting problem on the old machine is a hardware failure. I would guess that your CD rom is quietly failing (does it work well within Win95?), but it could also be the IDE controller or even the ribbon cable connecting the drive to the motherboard. (First rule of hardware troubleshooting: Check the cables!) If you can swap a Cdrom drive from another computer and try to boot from that, that might tell you something.

Oh, and I just thought of something. I had an old computer years ago that had "boot from CD" as an option in the bios, but it would *never* boot from a CD. It would make some feeble attempt (it looked like it was reading the CD), then fail. So, if your computer was built in the days when manufacturers just hadn't sorted out CD booting yet (and running Win95, it sounds like the right vintage), it's possible you're SOL.

But don't give up hope! Try to replace the CD drive and see if that helps. If it doesn't , you know the problem is somewhere else.

And by the way, I always burn puppy to CDRW, so your disk choice is not your problem.

Good luck

ND

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mouldy
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#4 Post by mouldy »

My computer boots nearly any bootable cd except wouldnt boot Streambox Linux. Tried two cdroms. Would boot on old computer with either cdrom. So used BCDL 150Z hot boot floppy. Russian boot floppy that hot boots cdrom even on old computers that arent capable of booting from cdrom. It let me boot Streambox.


http://bootcd.narod.ru/index_e.htm Want the bootable cd loader, not the cd wizard.

Guest

#5 Post by Guest »

I tried putting a newer cdrom drive in, and it booted. i guess the old cdrom did not read CDR and CDRW disks...is there a way i can get a CDR to be read on a 4x cdrom?

another thing is, my hard drive is currently at fat16 with approximately 150mb, enough to run Puppy.

when i boot it from my new cdrom, it tells me it cannot save anything on the harddrive??? and then it tells me to press enter to load everything into ram

it then tells me to enter a login and password?????

i am almost there..i just need to get an old cdrom that reads cdr's because the newer cdrom is from my newer pc..and i still need it for my computer

i also encountered an odd problem. i booted puppy off my newer computer. everything worked at first, but i somehow restarted 'JWM' or FVVM95..and suddenly my USB keyboard stopped working on puppy..i tried changing the settings in the mouse/keyboard wizard..but no help......

how do i remove all the temporary files..so it loads like the first time..asking you a few questions about kb/mouse,etc,etc.....

help is very much appreciated. thanks a lot

nduanetesh
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#6 Post by nduanetesh »

Ok, several issues to tackle from your last post...

First, congratulations on getting puppy to boot with the new cdrom drive. So, you've isolated the culprit that was keeping you from booting before. Sadly, the chances of somehow teaching your old 4x cdrom to read the puppy Cd are very slim, and to be honest, I don't think hacking the hardware is really worth it, since you can buy a brand new 48x cdrom drive for about $10US. (Go to www.pricewatch.com.) Actually, for the difference in price, I would suggest getting yourself a nice shiny new CD burner. A medium speed burner can be had for about $20, and the upper echelon of speed can be had for about $30.

Second, is your hard drive 150mb total? or 150mb of free space? If you've got 150mb of free space on the drive, that should be sufficient for puppy to create a pup001 file to save your settings to the hard drive. If that is the case, then you're looking at an odd bug that should probably go into the bugs forum. I'm not sure how low you can go on hard drive free space before puppy will no longer create a pup001. This would be a good question for Barry, I think. So, how much free space is on that hard drive?

Third, I am totally stymied by the request for a username and password. I've never had this happen, and theoretically it should never happen. Can you tell us what is the last bit of information text that puppy gives you before it asks for the username?

Fourth, on your newer computer, to erase the settings which puppy has saved so that it will run you through the setup questions the next time you boot, you'll need to boot up your computer into Windows, or whatever other OS you're using, and find the "pup001" on the root of the C: drive ("root" meaning it won't be inside any folders or anything, it'll just be sitting right there when you open up your C: drive.) This file contains your personal puppy settings. Delete it. The next time you boot puppy, puppy will create a new pup001 file, will ask you those initial setup questions again, and will store your personal preferences in the pup001 file.

Give us a bit more info, and we'll see if we can't hunt down those other bugs.


ND

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Flash
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#7 Post by Flash »

See this post about the username/password problem and one solution that was reported on the Puppy chat.

Also, Barry has put something about usernames and passwords in the Wiki page that explains how Puppy boots. Look about 3/4 the way down the page.

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daxumaming
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Can't boot CD

#8 Post by daxumaming »

hi guys, having problems here. i just cant boot using the burned cd-r. i know its not the cd coz i installed puppy linux on two other pc's. i know it's not the cd-drive coz i can boot knoppix and damn small linux. im getting this error.

ISOLINUX 2.13 2004-12-14
isolinux: Loading spec packet failed, trying to wing it...
isolinux: Failed to locate CD-ROM device; boot failed

i also tried downloading the same iso and burning on a different brand cd-r. still getting the same error message. also, i know its not the cd drive, i could boot windows, knoppix, dsl, and even fedora cd. the machine is a P2 200mhz, 32mb, 4.2Gb, matshita CD-Drive. i installed puppy on my 2 other machines, its this one that im having problem with. can anyone help me?

puppy is great, i've been using linux for over a year now, i've tried RH9, Knoppix, Bayanihan, and more recently, Damn Small Linux. i found out about Puppy 2 days ago, downloaded yesterday, and now i have a 733mhz P3 machine and a 166mhz P1 both running on Puppy linux all hdd installed. Speed is great, i just cant get my jaw to close coz everytime i boot using puppy, it's like having a brand new P4 or Athlon64 machine. its a brand new experience. its a pretty good alternative to other bloated distros with programs you dont need for everyday use. great job Barry Kauler, keep up the good work.

nduanetesh
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#9 Post by nduanetesh »

Hi,

The problem at the top of this thread ended up being resolved in another thread in another part of the forum. Someone suggest the user burn a new cd-r at very slow speed (I think it was 4x or below) and give it a shot. It worked.

I'm not sure why your computer would be having trouble with the puppy cd and not any of the other bootable distros (particularly since (I'm assuming) you burned some of the other discs yourself). If all of the discs you mentioned were commercially stamped, and puppy were the only one you burned, then that might be a clue...but such is not the case.

I will brew on this for a little while, and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, I suggest you reburn the disc on a slow speed and see what happens.

ND

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daxumaming
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#10 Post by daxumaming »

i installed puppy by transferring the hdd to another pc and installing the puppy there. returned the hdd back and booted up. yes, i also burned other distros myself and even used other brands of cd-r (4 times) but still no luck. i tried replacing the cd drive, still the same. i also tried burning cd-rs from other cd-rw drives, still no luck. might be the bios (i think). i just like to know what caused this problem, cause right now, im giving away puppy or puppies to my colleagues and they might encounter the same issue. i only hope im the only one who encountered this cause puppy is a very great distro, especially for people in the philippines ( my country) who grew up knowing only windows.

all in all, i think puppy is great, windows like interface and highly customizable, and its free. im thinking of buying the official CD to support this project. my 133mhz machine is as fast as my 733mhz P3 with windows xp. i love this distro, better than most, and very easy to use, not to mention very portable. now if only i know where to download the drivers that i need, gotta do some more googling.

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daxumaming
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#11 Post by daxumaming »

just for fyi. i tried googling and found out that people who got isolinux errors actually has old computers. theres nothing wrong with the CD-R nor the CD drive. its the BIOS. to get rid of that, you have to flash the bios to a newer version and pray that this will solve the problem. if i doesn't then your best bet would be to connect the HDD to another pc and install puppy from there. I'm just wondering what's causing the BIOS to reject these CD's while allowing the rest to boot without any problem. could it be compatibility issues with the software? i don't think its the physical media, is it? hope someone is techie enough to answer this and maybe provide some resolutions or even workarounds coz based on my googling, the only way to resolve it is to update the bios.

Rich
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#12 Post by Rich »

Most Flash bios updates are available online anyway. Go to the mainboard manufacturers website and look for it in the Support section.
All the instructions are there . Re- Flashing the bios is straight forward enough.

If you try this, let us know how you get on.

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danleff
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#13 Post by danleff »

nduanetesh, that was probably me. I keep mentioning this, as you hit the nail on the head about cd burning. The older the physical cdrom drive, the less compliant they are booting iso images.

Laptop cdrom drives are even more of a problem. I had a 24x cdrom in my lappy that would not boot a burned iso image. I replaced it with a 20x I had and that worked. I put the 24x in my mini-itx box and it will not boot properly, unless I insert it just as the bios tries to detect it.

So, we have two issues. Old cdrom drives are not always compiant with burned image standards that new cdrw drives/software use. Sometimes you will find if you tell the burning software to finalize the disk (no further writing possible) this helps. Always burn iso images like Puppy at a very slow speed, even 2X or 1X, if possible, and if you have an older cdrom drive.

The bios issue is also a problem. Motherboard companies get complaints about this and may release an updated bios that may solve the problem. The problem is, they don't always tell you that this fix is there in the readme text of the bios release.

I had a Dell Optiplex with this issue at work. The new bios release solved the problem.

Just be aware, if you do not follow the manufacturer's advice to the letter on some systems, you can trash the chip and may need to have the chip re-programmed by a professional. Older system bios flashing is not easy and requires some courage.

The newer motherboards have evolved to the point that bios flashiing is oftem more automated and require less user intervention. This is in response to users attempting to flash their bios inncorectly, or with the wrong bios for their motherboard.

If you do flash your bios, and your system is not set up to do this automatically via the web, make darn sure you have the correct bios and release for your EXACT motherboard model and version number, which is usually stamped on the board itself. Even the same model can have various version numbers, hence, differnet bios flash files on the website. Using the wrong one, at the worst, can cause an unbootable system, or one that does not function corredtly.

Sorry for the apparent rant, but I have seen this happen often enough, where a user flashes their bios and no longer can boot the system. With many Puppy users trying to get their older systems to use a good distro like Puppy (reserect their systems), I thought that it was worth mentioning.
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Lobster
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#14 Post by Lobster »

danleff wrote:
So, we have two issues. Old cdrom drives are not always compliant with burned image standards that new cdrw drives/software use. Sometimes you will find if you tell the burning software to finalize the disk (no further writing possible) this helps. Always burn iso images like Puppy at a very slow speed, even 2X or 1X, if possible, and if you have an older cdrom drive.
Well said Danleff. I have a very old CD burner, that I used to have major problems being recognized by BIOS.
Now it is is my main burner - its max speed is X2 for burning, I always burn at this speed with CDCC in Windows on CDRW - never do a MD5 checksum and 9/10 it works OK (usually the prob is a bad source download)

I have solved similar problems by underclocking my motherboard. Fast that does not work is -like- slow. Do not waste your time being hyped with the "Burn speed" of your CD writer. Burn slowly and surely - simmer one might say. Then Puppy. Woosh.


:)
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Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

nduanetesh
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#15 Post by nduanetesh »

Not to add additional terror to the process or anything, but I have personally rendered a motherboard completely unusable by flashing the BIOS. It was my very first computer, and the last step of flashing the BIOS was "when the computer reboots, press Delete to enter bios and choose Default Settings." Whelp, who would have thought that step was so important? I didn't press delete, didn't enter the bios, the compter froze, and that was all she wrote. I had to send the motherboard back for exchange (which Tigerdirect honored because it was their tech support guys' suggestion that I flash the bios in the first place)(small plug for tigerdirect there.) As you may guess, I've been much more careful since then.

But accidents happen. I had a bad flash on a motherboard a year ago (due to a faulty floppy disk), and thought that I was totally screwed, but much to my surprise, the newer (higher dollar) motherboard had a built in utility that allowed it to boot to the point that it would accept a floppy to replace the corrupt bios. so, that was handy.

Anyway, Danleff's advice about updating the bios is true. It could very well fix your booting problem. I don't usually suggest this option to people because of the possible danger of frying the board. however, if you're very careful, follow all of the directions and keep your fingers crossed, it can be done.

Of course, this is all assuming that there are even bios updates out there for your board...

Ok, enough blabber. I hope you're able to get this sorted out...from what you've posted, I'm on board with the "I think it's a problem with the way your bios accesses the boot info on the CD" bandwagon. Good Luck.

ND

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